Programmatic text analysis can be used to understand patterns and reveal trends in data that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to uncover with manual coding methods. This work uses programmatic text analysis, specifically term frequency counts, to study nearly 10,000 chemistry thesis and dissertation titles from 1911-2015. The thesis and…

Authentication data was utilized to explore undergraduate usage of subscription electronic databases. These usage patterns were linked to the information literacy curriculum of the library. The data showed that out of the 26,208 enrolled undergraduate students, 42% of them accessed a scholarly database at least once in the course of the entire…

The work of collection development in academic video game collections is at a crucial point of transformation--gaming librarians are ready to expand beyond console games collected in disc and cartridge format to the world of Internet games. At the same time, forms and genres of video games such as serious and independent games are increasingly…

This project was originally defined to explore the potential for ARL libraries to provide support to small, print-only publishers in order to ensure long-term digital access to their content. Research library publishing programs vary widely, from posting PDFs in an institutional repository to full-fledged publishing operations. During the life of…

In March 2010, the first floor of the main library at The Florida State University was renovated as a learning commons. With this change in design, all tutoring that existed throughout the library was moved into the commons. The crown jewel of these programs is the library's in-house, late-night peer tutoring program that has seen incredible…

In an effort to market the library as a more inviting, student-friendly place, librarians at the main library of Kent State University have piloted several new events to lure students into the building and keep them coming back. With the transition to more social events hosted by the university libraries, a number of questions arose among…

As part of a focused, methodical, and evaluative approach to emerging technologies, QR codes are one of many new technologies being used by the UC Irvine Libraries. QR codes provide simple connections between print and virtual resources. In summer 2010, a small task force began to investigate how QR codes could be used to provide information and…

This call for action addresses the high-level benefits of adopting a university-wide policy regarding research data management. It identifies the various university stakeholders and suggests that the library initiate a conversation among them in order to get buy-in for a proactive, rather than reactive, high-level policy for responsible data…

This study is a quantitative analysis of FTE staffing levels at academic libraries at 176 U.S. research universities between 2000 and 2008. Results showed that overall staffing levels at these libraries declined but that the average number of professional librarian FTE positions modestly increased. Other professional staff positions increased at a…

Librarians and archivists can gain insight into the disciplinary culture of historians, and history doctoral students in particular, by examining the acknowledgment sections of these students' doctoral dissertations. This paper is an exploratory analysis of the 219 history dissertations written at the University of Oklahoma between 1930 and 2005.…

Most academic libraries do not yet have gaming collections, let alone gaming services and facilities that support the unique and growing teaching and research needs of campus environments. Academic libraries in particular need to start thinking about developing the next generation of gaming collections and services. This article examines the…

In anticipation of current and future mass digitization projects in which the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Library will participate, the Library's Conservation Unit began to gather data on the "scannability" of our general book collections to anticipate potential effects on conservation and preservation work flows. The…

Midwestern gardeners are legendary for enduring and outwitting winter, with its heavy snowpack and recurring freezes and thaws. Most of them also reckon with a relatively short growing period. All of them find their horticultural plans complicated by hot, humid summers. In fact, the Midwest deals with four seasons dictating special considerations…

This paper examines the experience of one institution, the University of Maryland Libraries, as it made organizational efforts to harness existing workflows and to capture digitization done in the course of responding to patron requests. By examining the way this organization adjusted its existing workflows to put in place more systematic methods…

Purpose: The paper aims to report on the 30th IATUL Annual Conference held in Leuven, Belgium, 1-4 June, 2009. Design/methodology/approach: The paper summarises the major themes of the conference as well as giving some specific details of developments at the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India, which supplement the author's…